From the Back Cover
The growing presence of non-European cultures in America brings new challenges to as well as opportunities for parenting research. Whereas particular constructs of parent-child relationships were once considered universal, we now recognize distinct cultural variations. This is especially true in the case of Asian Americans, a population encompassing many diverse ethnicities.
Informed by a variety of qualitative and quantitative methodologies including detailed surveys of teenagers and their parents, Asian American Parenting and Parent-Adolescent Relationships focuses on Chinese and Filipino Americans--large populations with markedly different histories and cultural influences--giving readers a new lens into the nature and meaning of cultural differences in parenting. Synthesizing data on adolescent autonomy and dependence, parental support and control (both crucial to adolescents' wellbeing), and the rarely-explored concept of parental sacrifice, this ambitious volume:
- Compares the parental belief systems of European Americans and immigrant Chinese and their influence on parenting styles.
- Discusses the role of measurement equivalence in understanding Asian American parenting practices.
- Examines sacrifice as a central concept in Asian American parenting and in immigrant parenting in general.
- Analyzes how Asian American teenagers understand the support and control provided by their parents.
- Explores the dynamics of parent and child gender in Asian American parenting.
- Places these findings in the context of previous parenting research and identifies new directions for the field.
Asian American Parenting and Parent-Adolescent Relationships is a uniquely informative reference for researchers, clinicians, and graduate students across multiple disciplines, including developmental, clinical child, and school psychology, sociology, and anthropology as well as ethnic and women's studies.
"A much needed and extremely thoughtful contribution to the scholarship on Asian American families. The authors rely on a variety of research methods to reveal patterns that challenge stereotypes and urge us to move beyond pan ethnic categories and explore the rich diversity among Asian Americans. This book is an exemplary study of culture and parenting."
- Niobe Way, President, Society for Research on Adolescence /
Professor of Applied Psychology, New York University
Stephen T. Russell, Ph.D., is Professor and Fitch Nesbitt Endowed Chair in Family and Consumer Sciences, Director, Frances McClelland Institute for Children, Youth, and Families. He completed his doctorate in sociology at Duke University in 1994 and postdoctoral training in Life Course Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1997. His research focuses on adolescent sexual orientation and identity, parent-adolescent relationships, ethnicity, and culture.
Lisa J. Crockett, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She received her doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1986. Her research focuses on adolescent development and well-being with an emphasis on the role of ethnicity.
Ruth Chao, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside. She received her doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Chao was also an Assistant Professor in the Department of Child and Families Studies at Syracuse University. Her research interests include sociocultural perspectives of parenting and the family focusing on Asian immigrants. She recently completed a five-year, longitudinal study, funded by the National Institute of Health, examining the effects of parental control, warmth, and parental involvement in school on adolescent's school performance and behavioral adjustment. Her research also includes studies of the language acculturation of Asian immigrant families across time and its effects on adolescent's adjustment.
